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Basketball fans have the NBA. Football fans have the NFL. Even bowling fans have the PBA. But movie fans are out of luck when it comes to watching competitive events. Fear not, for I have the solution to your lack of competition problem: The Movie Trivia Schmoedown.
The Movie Trivia Schmoedown is a WWE style movie trivia show on YouTube in which twice a week the very best in movie trivia go head to head with only one able to come out on top. Created by Mark Ellis and Kristian Harloff in 2014, the show has gone through four complete seasons and is currently on its fifth. What began as a way for friends to battle each other for bragging rights has slowly turned into the premiere sport for movie nerds everywhere.
Tuesdays see teams square off head to head and Fridays are for the singles. Each regular season match consists of three rounds. Round one features eight of the more routine questions, and competitors write down their answers on whiteboards. Each question is worth one point. Round two is the wheel round. An infamous wheel is brought out that features fourteen categories. If a competitor spins a category they do not like, they can respin, but they must stick with whatever the second spin is. Four questions are asked to the singles players and six are asked to the teams. Questions are worth two points, unless they go to multiple choice, in which case the value decreases to one point. This is the only round in which stealing is allowed. Round three features three questions from randomly selected categories. The value of each question goes from one point to three points to five points, but the difficulty increases as well.
If regular movie trivia is not your thing, don’t worry: there is an Inner Geekdom subset as well. These matches focus on the more geek and nerdy categories, such as Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Star Trek. The basic format is the same, but these questions dive deep into the franchises being discussed.
Recently added is the Star Wars championship. These matches are only Star Wars questions. Sam Witwer of Star Wars Rebels fame is one of the most frequent competitors. Perhaps the most famous match took place between Sam and Ken Napzok, a producer for Collider’s Jedi Council. This match involved thirty uninterrupted minutes of Star Wars only questions and trivia. While I am not the biggest Star Wars fan, the amount of knowledge and skill on display had me glued to the computer the whole time.
While matches occur weekly, each year some pay-per-view style events come up as well. The Free 4 All takes place in the spring and is a last man standing type match in which over forty competitors go head to head. Collider Collision takes place over the summer and has multiple titles on the line. Each fall a March Madness style tournament takes place for both the singles and teams, with the winners taking on the current champion at the Schmoedown Spectacular in December.
While the show is first and foremost about the trivia, what will have you coming back week after week are the personalities. Each new persona brings something fresh and exciting to the table. The storylines range in everything from a battle for the commissionership to faction versus faction. Just when you think it cannot get any more exciting, something unexpected comes and umps the ante even higher.
One of the best parts about the Schmoedown is the community surrounding it. The hosts are well aware of the power of the fan and rely heavily on fan interaction. If you tweet a question or comment to Kristian, be prepared for a response. You can also join their Facebook group, which allows for interaction with fans about everything Schmoedown related. For the bigger events in bigger cities, meet-ups often take place as well.
It may be intimidating to try and jump in midseason, but I promise you that if you give it a chance, you will get hooked. Now you don’t have to feign excitement during the World Cup or NBA playoffs, but you can have your own sports league to get genuinely excited about. So I only have one question left for you: Are you ready to Schmoedown?